Full Answer
Who wrote the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock?
A LitCharts expert can help. A LitCharts expert can help. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem written by T.S. Eliot in 1910 and published in 1915.
Where can I find J Alfred Prufrock’s poem from?
Eliot’s poem can be sourced from his book Collected Poems 1909-1962 . Roger Mitchell wrote, in this poem: “J. Alfred Prufrock is not just the speaker of one of Eliot’s poems. He is the Representative Man of early Modernism.
What literary devices are used in the Love Song of Prufrock?
The latter is a common literary device concerned with how a poet may or may not cut off a line before the end of a phrase or sentence—for example, the transition between lines five and six. There are several interesting similes in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ that help create memorable images.
When was Prufrock first published?
Eliot actually began work on the poem some five years before it was first published. The common belief is that ‘Prufrock’ first appeared in 1917, when Eliot published it at the head of his first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations. In fact, as we’ve just seen, it was first published two years earlier, in Poetry magazine.
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What is the purpose of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
T.S. Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a poem reflective of the generation's anxiety and indecisiveness. The speaker's anxieties and the poem's attachment to modernity is present throughout the text.
What influenced The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
The poem's structure was heavily influenced by Eliot's extensive reading of Dante Alighieri and makes several references to the Bible and other literary works—including William Shakespeare's plays Henry IV Part II, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet, the poetry of seventeenth-century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, and the ...
What Is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock written in?
It was first published in Poetry magazine in June 1915, and later collected in Eliot's first book, Prufrock and other Observations (1917). The poem, written in 1911, is framed as a dramatic monologue.
What point of view is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
Prufrock's point of view shifts several times throughout the course of the poem, most notably when he likens himself to a small crab. Elsewhere in the poem, he considers the universe, regarding everything in terms of cosmic proportions.
What is the historical context of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
Eliot wrote “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” from 1910 to 1913. The early decades of the 19th century were a time of enormous social, cultural, and economic change in the United States. With the rapid onset of industrialization, U.S. citizens were moving into cities at unprecedented rates.
What is the irony of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
The style and language of The Love Song also produce ironic effects. Prufrock's constant use of the pompous and grandiloquent language for the trivial is ironical. The contrast between the grandiose with the prosaic end exposes the seedy and, the triviality of modern life.
What is Prufrock's main dilemma in the poem?
Second, Prufrock's ideal society cannot be balanced with the society he is living in. He was confined by the real world and had no way to change and flee. Therefore, it was his dilemma that made him could not live in harmony with the real world and then led to him spiritually paralyzed and alienated.
What is Prufrock's overwhelming question?
In T.S. Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” I believe Prufrock's overwhelming question is a marriage proposal because of the severity of his indecisiveness and inner debate of whether or not to ask it.
What is Prufrock's greatest fear?
Prufrock's anxiety about his own baldness, and also about the feebleness of his body, can be related to his obsessive fear regarding aging and death. This theme is again echoed as Prufrock proclaims: “I have seen the Eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short I was afraid” (lines 85-86).
What type of monologue is used in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
dramatic monologueThe entire poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an interior monologue based on the traditional dramatic monologue, a solo speech that often puts into words the speaker's inner turmoil, as in Hamlet's famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy.
Is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock a narrative poem?
T.S. Eliot's breakthrough poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is expertly crafted to have a complex structure with various hidden themes. The poem acts as an inner monologue for the titular character, appearing as lyric-narrative poetry.
Is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock a love poem?
One of the first true modernist poems, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' is a shifting, repetitive monologue; the thoughts of a mature male as he searches for love and meaning in an uncertain, twilight world. T.S. Eliot wrote his dubious love song in 1910/11, but J.
How is rhythm used in literature?
Rhythm in poetry can be thought of as the beat or the flow of a poem. It is made up of beat and repetition so it usually refers to features of sound. It is created by stressed and unstressed syllables in a line or a verse.
What does Prufrock represent in the poem?
The figure of Prufrock represented for Eliot a way to examine what he called a "complex." Eli ot was interested in exploring an idea central to the poem, that of a man who is so afraid of doing or writing anything wrong, so caught up in being timid and hesitant, that he never produces anything at all.
What is the meaning of the love song of Alfred Prufrock?
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is regarded as signifying the transition to Modernism from Romanticism, before Modernism was a recognized form. There are many questions about its content that are unknowable—is Prufrock speaking to another, or is it all internal dialogue? What is his "overwhelming question"? These questions aren't answered, but the reader is able to know that Prufrock is a disillusioned middle-aged man confronting feelings of isolation and frustration with the modern world. He finds it difficult to be decisive, and the poem is a translation (perhaps word for word) of his own mental musings.
Why did Eliot write this poem?
Eliot wrote this poem to communicate the intense feeling of alienation and of running out of time experienced by so many people in the time of Modernism. Eliot presents the reader with a man who is obsessed about the passing of time and how time is literally running out for him. He is a man who is shown to want to avoid commitment of any sort or limiting himself, but at the same time he is aware that he is being forced into making choices everyday that limit his freedom. Note the way that this is focused on in the following quote:
What does Eliot mean by "an expression of feeling of my own"?
If the poem is, as Eliot says, partially "an expression of feeling of my own," he seems to have been concerned with his own fear of being paralyzed by self-doubt or hesitancy. To better explore this feeling, he created the persona of an older man who truly hasn't achieved anything because of his fears.
What does it mean to compare the ideals of the Lost Generation to the content of the poem?
Comparing the ideals of the Lost Generation to the content of the poem would suggest that Eliot was capturing the concerns, fears, and emotions that many people felt at the time of its publication.
What is the identity of this lost generation?
Perhaps the identity of this Lost Generation is most indicative of a common mindset at the time Eliot wrote this poem. This generation was disillusioned by the horrors of World War I and, as a result, began questioning the status quo. Generally, as a result, this generation didn't feel the need to have permanent roots; they were more nomadic. They were concerned with mortality and its purpose (leading to a focus on youthful ideals) and challenged social conventions.
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Why is the poem "But in Pieces" so significantly argued over the very fragmentation that Eliot wrote?
This is why the poem is so significantly argued over the very fragmentation that Eliot wrote, for it is the wealth of a seemingly inexhaustible source of reasonings. One can take almost any approach, any assignation of meaning, to J. Prufrock and his world.
How many coffees does Prufrock drink a day?
Once more, evidence of the passing of time gives us the idea that Prufrock is one of those men who drink about sixteen coffees a day. ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,’ implies a solitary, workaholic existence, implies that there is no other marker in his life with which to measure, that he is routine and fastidious and not prone to making decisions outside of his comfort zone.
What is Prufrock about?
It isn’t easy to decide what Prufrock is about; the fragmented poetic landscape of T.S. Eliot’s poetry makes it difficult to pin down one exact feeling within ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ It is considered one of the most visceral, emotional poems and remains relevant today, particularly with millennials who are more than a little bit used to these feelings.
How does Prufrock's distance from society reflect itself?
Prufrock’s distance from contemporary society reflects itself in this fragmentation ; he reduces people to the sum of their parts, and thus by doing so, empties the world of others. Prufrock’s indecisiveness and his stating thereof do not stop the poem but rather increase its pace.
What is the opening line of the poem "Let us go then you and I"?
The opening line of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ “Let us go then, you and I,” provides the reader with a hint that the poem needs to be read as an internalized, dramatic monologue.
What is the speaker's inner life?
The speaker ’s interior life, hidden from the rest of the world, is alive for the reader. There, readers can understand the speaker’s hope and desire for a romantic connection and his struggle to act on that desire. His hopes remain mostly empty throughout the poem.
What are some examples of dramatic monologues?
Examples of dramatic monologue include Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time), Henry James (Portrait of a Lady), Robert Browning ( Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister), and the most infamous of all, James Joyce (Ulysses), for which the term ‘ stream of consciousness ’ writing was invented. ‘Prufrock’ is an early prototype of the ‘stream ...
What is the curious style of the poem?
The curious style of the poem was a result of some surprising influences. Eliot drew inspiration for his poetry from a number of unusual places, and many of these can be seen in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. The poet’s adoption of a persona (the comically named J. Alfred Prufrock of the title) is a result of Eliot’s reading ...
When was Prufrock written?
2. Eliot actually began work on the poem some five years before it was first published. The common belief is that ‘Prufrock’ first appeared in 1917, when Eliot published it at the head of his first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations. In fact, as we’ve just seen, it was first published two years earlier, in Poetry magazine. But Eliot began to write the poem when he was just 21 years old, in February 1910, and worked on it sporadically over the next few years before he finally got it into print. Much of it was written by around 1911.
Friday, 11 January 2013
The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock begins with a stanza in Italian, which before research didn't add much to the poem and its meaning. Therefore, I did some work on it to see what it meant and if it might help me in performance and workshop.
Italian Meaning
The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock begins with a stanza in Italian, which before research didn't add much to the poem and its meaning. Therefore, I did some work on it to see what it meant and if it might help me in performance and workshop.
Summary
Themes
- Eliot engages with several themes in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ These themes include anxiety, desire, and disappointment. The speaker’s interior life, hidden from the rest of the world, is alive for the reader. There, readers can understand the speaker’s hope and desire for a romantic connection and his struggle to acton that desire. His hopes remain mostly empty throu…
Structure and Form
- ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T.S. Eliot is primarily written in free verse. This means that most of the lines do not follow a specific rhyme scheme or metrical pattern. But, the poem is not without either. Eliot briefly uses various meters, such as the common iambic pentameter and less common spondaic and trochaic feet. For example, in lines seventy-three and seventy-four, the p…
Literary Devices
- T.S. Eliot uses several literary devices in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ These include but are not limited to similes, examples of personification, and enjambment. The latter is a common literary device concerned with how a poet may or may not cut off a line before the end of a phrase or sentence—for example, the transitionbetween lines five and six. There are several interesting …
Detailed Analysis
- Line 1-12
The opening line of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ “Let us go then, you and I,” provides the reader with a hint that the poem needs to be read as an internalized, dramatic monologue. It also gives us the idea that the narrator is speaking to another person, and thus what is being said is … - Lines 13-14
Finally, there is a presence in the poem besides the voiceof J. Prufrock – the women talking of Michelangelo. Though they are a living presence, the focus on ‘Michelangelo’ actually serves to deaden them; they exist in the poem as a series of conversations, which Prufrock lumps into on…
Historical Background
- Eliot’s poem can be sourced from his book Collected Poems 1909-1962. Roger Mitchell wrote, in this poem: “J. Alfred Prufrock is not just the speaker of one of Eliot’s poems. He is the Representative Man of early Modernism. Shy, cultivated, oversensitive, sexually retarded (many have said impotent), ruminative, isolated, self-aware to the point of solipsism, as he says, “Am a…
Similar Poetry
- Readers who enjoyed ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ should also consider T.S. Eliot’s best poems, including the following: 1. ‘Portrait of a Lady‘–published in 1915. It describes a relationship between a callous young man and an older woman. 2. ‘Sweeny Erect‘–introduces one of Eliot’s best-known characters, Sweeney, in a brothel alongside an epileptic woman. 3. ‘Ash-We…